People really need to learn the concept of "Expected Outcome" before they go headlong into "rejection therapy". For instance, what was his expected outcome if Steve Jobs had replied back? I'm willing to bet it was 0. He just did it because he could. This is like me tracking down insert female celeb fantasy here's phone number and asking to talk to her. Pointless.
i believe there is some unconvencional value in the advice in the article for the intraverted dudes with low self esteem like me. Given any hypothetical opportunity people like me will evaluate the chances of the positive outcome of the opportunity lower than extravert dudes with higher esteem, and will reject the opportunity outright. While your advice suggests the default behavior, the advice above stresses the need to increase the number of attempts, irregardless of whether they are successful or not, and by the law of large numbers, this might result in higher probability of positive outome/s.
Therefore, setting the goal of being rejected more often, might be more productive than waiting for the "right" opportunity to acieve the desired outcome.
Let's count the ways in which the media, twitter, and even HN can be hypocritical:
Driving cars that pollute the environment and force the US to wage continous war to secure oil.
Supporting a food industry that is killing us.
Support raising my taxes so you can live a better life.
Use an inordinate amount of energy, water which is scarce.
Live wonderful lives with nice furniture, clothes, etc that are made by really poor people the world over.
Take trips all over the place, using more oil.
Sit at home watching TV and being entertained instead of being productive and fixing problems (yes, this too is a sin).
Have bad children that will grow up to be murderers, theives, leaches, and knownothings because you're too busy whining about some guy hunting an elephant.
Have supported tons of politicians that serve to further their own interests and that of their corporate sponsors.
I could go on and on and on before I finally get to:
Legally shot and killed an elephant which was destroying crops in an African country.
If I switched my domains from GoDaddy for this, I'd pretty much have to withdraw from American society for good, in order to be on decent moral ground.
Casinos won't go bankrupt because they are a monopoly protected by the state ( although the state(s) does not have allegiance any one them and is increasingly in the process of granting many more licenses to shore up deficits, Casinos still have a very, very high barrier to entry ). See my comment downthread. And yes, they are equally predatory. And lotteries, well, yeah ... owned by the state, not going anywhere because there is zero competition.
The funny thing about sunk cost is that everyone seems to know about it, but nobody seems to actually act on the concept. You see lots of folks with MBAs doing it when it comes to trading, and they've all sat in the econ class and nodded when that topic came up.
Hey man, I'm doing it right now ... got a startup i've spent 10 months on that I'm still hoping I can make successful. Even though I could probably quit and pickup one of these 150k jobs everyone seems to be getting ;)
How does "as users lost money, they just dropped off." followed by "filed for bankruptcy", mean "Smart? Definitely yes."?
I guess they did make money for a while, so it's wasn't terrible, but having a business model that makes your customers leave? I'll pass on calling that 'Smart'.
You are thinking in terms of the corporation, or the investors. However, it's a fair guess that some "smart" people personally did very well from this model.
(If you think about it, a practical definition of "scam" is something that is profitable but doesn't generate repeat customers.)
In hindsight, it is easy to see and understand how their business model didn't work out. But when they launched, it seemed to be a nice idea.
Even in casinos, the odds are stacked heavily against the player. Still, people do keep playing. Swoopo was similar. I guess it's hard to get new users when every blog calls you a scam.
Competition in a free market is not a pretty sight. That's why gaming commissions never stepped in -- they knew what Casinos have long known; without state protection of gambling, the number of venues would quickly proliferate into the thousands and push profits to zero.
I'm also pretty sure that there is still a lot of legal liability in the air. August Capital will most certainly face some exposure; on my female facebook test account I've seen advertisements of Swoopo class action.
without state protection of gambling, the number of venues would quickly proliferate into the thousands and push profits to zero.
Why is that a bad outcome?
What you're saying, if I understand it correctly, is that regulation helps keep scammy crap like gambling and Swoopo around. All I can say to that is that I'm against regulation precisely for this reason (among others).
Sorry that I misunderstood you. I agree, now that I have more context.
[It was "Competition in a free market is not a pretty sight" that made me disagree. It is a very pretty sight indeed when scammers fail, and that's something that free markets are conducive to. (I define free market to mean a situation where the government intervenes only to protect individual rights (i.e., they only stop force and fraud). Unfortunately, we don't yet have any free markets in America today, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter.)]
When the business is scamming customers,
competition in a free market is not a pretty sight.
And no, I'm not aloof enough to believe we have a truly free market. But it's free enough to let thousands of Swoopo clones race bid prices to the bottom. Now it seems customers may even be winning more from the auction sites than the auction sites are taking in.
But fear not for Swoopo! They'll undoubtedly sell their soon-to-be patented "technology" to the likes of Intellectual Ventures, who'll use it to extort other would be scammers, completing the circle of evil!
